


The Second Day

by TiamatsChild



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 12:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6657304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiamatsChild/pseuds/TiamatsChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin Skywalker attempts to navigate a new and strange social situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Second Day

Anakin Skywalker had no idea what to do with the other children in the Jedi Temple. He'd never met so many other children all in one place, all at the same time. Too many of them for him to get to know them properly, especially since they all had clusters and constellations of friends and didn't seem to welcome an approach when they were alone. He couldn't keep up with everyone's names. He didn't want to use the wrong name. Names were important. It was wrong to get them wrong, especially when everyone knew your name already, and they all seemed to, and he didn't know what to say or how to act and he didn't have any toys he could offer to share and he didn't know if they were the kind of kids who wanted to learn new games or if that would make them feel like he thought they were stupid, and he didn't think they were stupid, they were obviously smart, and - 

Overwhelmed, he retreated to the corner of the common room with the bookshelves.

That was where he was, hiding behind an illustrated encyclopedia of cultures of the Galactic Republic, and rapidly succumbing to frustration because he'd read multiple pages multiple times and retained none of the information, when the new adult walked in. Until that moment Anakin had been thinking of Jedi children as eerily well behaved. He'd been frightened by it. Why did they act like that? Was there something under the surface here that he was missing and had better pick up on fast if he wanted to make it?

But when the new adult came in, all the children in the room turned like hungry birds, and sounded like them too.

“Knight Tano!” were the first words Anakin picked out of the collective babble.

“Knight Tano! Did you have a good mission?”

“Knight Tano, pick me up!” 

“Knight Tano, Knight Tano, I made you a picture! It's in the third art room!”

“Knight Tano, I learned two new katas!”

“Knight Tano, Knight Tano, Knight Tano! I found a _toad_ in garden well eight!”

“Knight Tano, come teach morning meditation again! We miss you!”

Anakin watched warily, trying to vanish behind the encyclopedia. Knight Tano was tall and strong (she had a kid hanging from each bicep and one around her neck and more clinging to her legs and was moving perfectly easy just like that was nothing) and laughing. Anakin didn't have a good history with tall and strong and laughing - give him silent and thoughtful any day. 

“All right, all right!” Knight Tano said, after a few minutes of laughing and shouting and all the children talking over each other. “I'm happy to see you all, but I had a specific reason to come up here.”

“Awwwwww,” someone, or possibly several someones, said.

“I know,” Knight Tano said. “It's hard when we can't do everything we want right when we want it. I have trouble with that too.”

Anakin peeked over the encyclopedia. Only one of the kids had dropped off Knight Tano's arm. She grinned down at the one still there. It looked kind of like she was going to eat him. 

The kid beamed back.

“Sorry, buddy,” Knight Tano said. “I got to have a private conversation.”

The kid swung a little.

“That means no arm ornaments.”

The kid dropped and hit the floor in a perfect roll.

“I promise to catch up with all of you later,” Knight Tano said, raising her now unencumbered hands, palms up, in a gesture Anakin didn't recognize, but which looked formal. She bowed to the children and the laughter in her and the room receded, everyone calming down and settling in like it was just that easy. The children bowed back, all except for Anakin, who tried, because he'd been raised to be polite even if he didn't know how to be polite, but discovered too late that the book was in his way.

When Knight Tano straightened up her face was composed and serene and she was looking right at Anakin, who was still struggling with his attempt at a bow, and then she moved towards him all poised and graceful and controlled - 

Anakin shoved the book away and scrambled to his feet. 

It wasn't really that he was afraid of her, or at least, not any more afraid than he was afraid of every other strange adult, and less than many, she was a Jedi, she couldn't be bad, she'd let those kids pull on her and not got mad at all, but – but something was changing as she walked forward, narrowing the gap between them, and he didn't know what it was. He wanted to meet it standing.

“Hello,” Knight Tano said, in a normal sort of voice, not ringing and carrying like when she'd spoken to the whole room.

“Hello,” Anakin said.

Knight Tano smiled at him. Her teeth did not make an appearance this time. “I'm Ahsoka Tano,” she told him.

“I'm Ani,” Anakin said. “Anakin Skywalker.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. “Would you be willing to come to the garden with me?”

Anakin considered it. “No,” he said, after weighing his options. He did want to go to the garden, but he wanted to see what Knight Tano would do if he told her no more.

Knight Tano nodded. “Okay,” she said, and dropped to her knees in front of Anakin, one fluid movement, both wild and precise. Anakin jerked backward involuntarily. She smiled at him. “I've been looking for an apprentice,” she said, almost conversationally. It would have been conversational, if she hadn't been on her knees and her back hadn't been just a little too elegantly straight, her shoulders just a little too far back, like she was scared too, like she didn't know what would happen either.

Anakin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not sure what he was feeling or why he was feeling it, not sure why it should make his eyes prickle with the possibility of tears. _Qui-Gon Jinn already told you he can't train you_ , he thought fiercely at himself, _don't be dumb_. “Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. The smile was gone. She was very serious. “My teacher, Master Plo, met you yesterday. He's on the Council.”

Anakin nodded warily. He couldn't remember which Council member was Master Plo. He hoped it wasn't the human with the disapproving eyebrows. He thought those eyebrows were the sort of thing a teacher would be sure to pass on. 

Knight Tano watched him closely as she said, “He thinks we could make a good match.” Anakin froze up. He wanted to be brave, the way his mother had said to be, but he didn't know how. He didn't know what to do in a place like this, what to say to a thing like that. 

“It's up to you,” Knight Tano told him. “I want you to understand that before I ask.”

Anakin wasn't sure that was really true, but he was sure Knight Tano thought it was. He nodded. Knight Tano beamed at him for an instant before composing herself with that strange sense of reaching out that hung around most of the Jedi in the Temple, as if they were always holding hands with something invisible, the way Anakin always reached out to his mother when he was really afraid or lonely or confused.

“Anakin Skywalker,” Knight Tano said, and his name seemed weightier when she spoke it, everything she said seemed like it was something bigger than only the two of them, or rather they were bigger somehow, when she said it, “would you do me the honor of becoming my Padawan learner?”

Anakin had known he'd say yes before he said it, before she even began the question, but he hadn't realized how much he'd mean it until she asked and he answered. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I will,” and flung himself at her. 

That was stupid: she was armed, he'd seen the two lightsabers hanging from her belt, prettier than Qui-Gon Jinn's, gleaming like new starship ceramic plating, deadly, and she was a warrior and a predator too, and it wasn't wise to startle either one, but she just reached up and took his weight and hugged him tight. 

“You won't take it back?” Anakin asked, small, into the curve of her collarbone. He was appalled at himself as he did it, asking such a question, he knew better. There was no better way to get something taken away, but Anakin was always doing that, over and over, every time. 

“No,” she said, her voice suddenly as fierce as that glimpse of her teeth. “ _Never_.” She hugged him harder, then set him back on his feet and ruffled his hair aggressively until he ducked and danced away, giggling, laughing for the first time since he'd watched Padme leave, startled into joy. “You're stuck with me, Skyguy!”


End file.
